


the places that we never should’ve left

by epilogues



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Hiatus, Light Angst, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, theyre on a plane?, uhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 22:01:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17252174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epilogues/pseuds/epilogues
Summary: the last blues we’re ever gonna haveorthe odds of getting stuck next to your ex on a plane





	the places that we never should’ve left

**Author's Note:**

> hello i wrote this all tonight and it’s Way Longer than expected and kinda rambly but hey! i wrote something! hope u enjoy!
> 
> also i made a playlist for this before writing and if u wanna check some of those songs out the biggest Moods here are bishops knife trick (fob), hopeless (halsey), and me (the 1975)

“Flight 892 to Chicago, this is your last call for boarding,” the loudspeaker announces just as Pete skids around the corner and into the gate.    
  
He steps into line behind an elderly couple, still panting as he pulls his boarding pass out of his pocket. God, this is why he hates flying. Or rather, this is why he hates the LA traffic that got him to the airport an entire hour after he’d planned to arrive. Whatever. They both suck.    
  
The woman at the gate scans Pete’s boarding pass and he starts down the walkway to the plane as he finally lets himself catch his breath. He made it in time, he’ll be home in Chicago in about four hours, and everything’s fine.    
  
The plane is packed full. Apparently, mid-October is prime travel time now, judging by how many feet Pete nearly trips over as he makes his way down the aisle to 9B.    
  
There’s already someone seated in 9A, a small man with large headphones and untied shoes.  Pete silently thanks him for taking the window seat as he stows his bag in the overhead compartment and sits down.    
  
_ On plane, takeoff is soon. Be home around 12 or 1,  _ he tells his mom before switching his phone to airplane mode and awkwardly maneuvering it into his back pocket.    
  
The flight attendant at the front of the plane begins her safety spiel, and Pete can’t help but pay attention despite how many times he’s sat through it. The guy next to him doesn’t move, head down and face obscured as he scrolls through something on his phone. Something about him feels intensely familiar, but Pete’s running on four hours of sleep for the past two days and he can’t quite muster up the effort to figure out what it is.    
  
The guy still doesn’t look up as the plane starts to move towards the runway. The reflection of his phone screen in the window reveals that he’s messaging someone, and Pete taps his shoulder.    
  
“Hey, excuse me, sorry, but they just announced that it’s time to switch on airplane mode,” he says. The guy looks up, his confused face and the faint pulse of bass escaping from his headphones showing that he didn’t hear, but Pete completely forgets everything about airplanes and phones and just about everything else under the sun as soon as they make eye contact.    
  
“Uh,” Pete says, “I-“   
  
“Sir, please switch your device into airplane mode,” a flight attendant says suddenly, leaning over Pete and gesturing towards the phone in Patrick’s hand.    
  
“Uh, yeah, of course,” Patrick stammers, one hand adjusting his headphones while the other messes with something on his phone. His eyes don’t leave Pete for even half a second.    


The flight attendant steps away briskly, leaving Pete and Patrick in the not-quite silence of the plane as it edges onto the runway. 

“I didn’t plan this, I swear,” Pete blurts out. “I wouldn’t have tried to - this wasn’t, like, a  _ Pete Wentz  _ thing, you know, it just -“ 

Patrick sighs, runs a hand through his hair and knocks his headphones down to rest around his neck. (Pete pretends not to notice, let alone be surprised at, the sound of Bebe’s voice playing through the tinny speakers in the second before Patrick pauses the music.) “No, I could tell by your face that it’s not.” 

For a long moment, the only sound is that of the plane slowly starting to accelerate. Pete’s hands automatically tighten on his armrests. “I, uh. How have you been?”

“Not bad,” Patrick answers, and it sounds like he means it. “My album drops in two days, so, you know how that goes.”

“Oh, that’s awesome,” Pete says. He doesn’t have to fake the  _ hey, I’m proud of you, _ lying under his words. “I heard  _ Truant Wave _ , dude, that was some really good stuff.”

“Thanks,” Patrick replies, cheeks flushing a pink that Pete can barely see in the dim cabin lights. “How have you been?”

Pete shrugs. “Alright.” It’s not a lie, really, unless you count the omission of every single minute he’s spent missing Patrick so much it hurts. The words are on his tongue, spilling up from his throat and nearly making him choke on the fact that it’s been over a year since he’s seen Patrick, but he forces them down. “I’ve been busy.”

The plane finally lifts off, and Patrick’s eyes drop to Pete’s white knuckles. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine once we hit cruising altitude or whatever,” Pete says, like Patrick doesn’t know. Like Patrick didn’t hold his hand on every flight Pete went on for seven years straight, all the way through the last flight home to Chicago after they finished touring for  _ Folie.  _

Patrick nods, almost like he’s remembering the same things as Pete, and turns away slightly. 

“What are you heading to Chicago for?” Pete asks. There’s something in his gut telling him not to let Patrick turn away this time, like maybe this is a second chance he’s been handed by the universe if he can just get Patrick to  _ talk  _ to him about what went wrong. 

“Home,” Patrick says. “I was just in LA for album stuff for a few days, but now I’m gonna be in Chicago until I head out on tour. What about you?”

“My mom kept nagging me to come visit, and I mean, it’s not like I’m doing anything else right now,” Pete answers. His palms are sweaty in a way Patrick hasn’t made them in years, despite the almost too cold air conditioning. “Patrick, look, I just - this feels kinda, I don’t know, it’s like. What are the odds, I guess?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says softly. “But coincidences happen, you know. Not everything is some grand cosmic, like, soulmate shit.”

Pete sighs. “I know, I wasn’t trying to - “

“I was texting a guy I met in LA earlier,” Patrick blurts. “Sorry, I just, uh. It’s not a  _ thing,  _ I don’t even know why I bothered mentioning it, like-“

“No, no, it’s fine,” Pete says, and he hates himself for it but he adds, “I miss you.” 

The thing is, Patrick was the one who left, who packed up all of the clothes that had migrated into Pete’s closet and wrote a note about needing space and left Pete to wake to an empty bed and an empty house. So that’s why it sorta knocks the wind out of Pete when Patrick says, so quietly that Pete’s not even sure he knows he’s saying it, “I miss you too.”

As soon as he can breathe again, Pete starts, “I-“

He’s interrupted by the sound of the pilot announcing that they’ll be hitting turbulence soon, and by the time Pete’s turned back to finish speaking, Patrick has his headphones back on. 

“Shit,” Pete swears under his breath. The plane rocks a bit and he swears again, this time out of nervousness. He reaches for his phone to try and distract himself just as the plane leans to the left hard enough to toss him into Patrick’s side. 

From there, it’s like 90% instinct for Pete to just grab Patrick’s hand the next time the plane pitches to the side. Patrick looks at him with wide eyes, pausing his music and sliding his headphones off again in what seems like slow motion. 

“Are you okay?”

“Uh, kinda, just - turbulence,” Pete says, “you know I hate flying.” He moves to let go of Patrick’s hand only to find Patrick carefully tangling their fingers together. 

“If you need to, um, hold on, I’m here,” Patrick says awkwardly. 

_ I’m here.  _ Pete knows the words don’t mean what he’s wanted them to for the past year and a half, but he’ll fucking take them. He squeezes Patrick’s hand tightly, and this time it’s only partially because of the way the plane tilts. 

They pass the turbulent spot about five minutes later, but even once the seatbelt light switches off, Pete doesn’t let go of Patrick’s hand. Patrick doesn’t try to put his headphones back on, nor does he resist when Pete leans over and rests his head on his shoulder.  

“What - I know you said it was because of the hiatus, but - what went wrong?” Pete whispers just as it looks like Patrick’s about to doze off. 

Patrick sighs, running his free hand through his hair. Pete totally doesn’t note how much he seems to do that now that he’s not wearing a hat constantly. “I… it… I got scared, Pete. Here I was, in this relationship and in this band that my life revolved around pretty much since I was a teenage, and you were always talking about how we were soulmates and perfect and… I don’t know. The band was almost to a breaking point and when that all came to a head, it was almost like the excuse I needed to get away from you.”

Pete can’t help the way he winces at that. Fuck. “Fuck,” he repeats out loud. “Patrick, I’m sorry, I never meant to make you feel trapped or anything, and -“

“No, sorry, that was a bad way of putting it, you never made me feel trapped, really, I just… I didn’t know how to be an adult without you. And that felt like something I needed to figure out.”

Patrick isn’t one to choose every single word as meticulously as Pete, but still, his use of the past tense in his last sentence stands out like a glaring red beacon. “I get that,” Pete says slowly, carefully, like he’s approaching a hurt animal, “but is there any chance that you, like, that you’ve figured that out?”

“I…” Patrick pauses, stares out of the window where America is supposedly rushing by under them, somewhere behind all of the dark clouds. “I don’t know, Pete.”

It’s not the answer Pete wanted, obviously, but it’s more or less what he expected. He sits up slowly, lets go of Patrick’s hand. The plane suddenly feels small and claustrophobic, and Pete needs to get out  _ now.  _

“Bathroom,” he mumbles as he gets up and makes his way to the back of the plane. There’s someone inside already, and the choked-up feeling building in Pete’s throat isn’t conducive to asking someone to hurry up, so he just walks back to his seat with significantly worse posture than before. 

Patrick’s asleep, or at least pretending to be, slumped against the window and hands buried deep in the pockets of his jacket. Pete sits down slowly so as not to disturb him and just  _ thinks _ for a while. 

The not-silence of the plane is a perfect background for everything running through Pete’s mind over the next three hours. Just when he thought he was starting to get over Patrick… fuck.

Patrick wakes up when the pilot comes on the intercom to announce their descent, but he and Pete don’t speak as the plane drifts lower and lower before finally touching down. 

“I know you said that not everything is some grand cosmic soulmate shit,” Pete says as the lights come up and their fellow passengers start stretching and moving. “But… second chances are a thing, right?”

Patrick looks at him, eyes suddenly so reminiscent of the first time Pete heard him sing, the moment Pete knew they were going to make it. “Maybe,” he says finally. “I mean, like, I don’t think I’m the one that needs to be giving out second chances here.”

That’s not a no. That’s not a no, that’s a fucking olive branch, and Pete’s going to latch onto it with everything he’s got. “My mom’s making a big dinner tomorrow night,” he says as he stands and gets his bag out of the overhead compartment. “If you want to come by. She’d love to see you.”

Patrick stands up then, grabbing a small black backpack from under his seat and slinging it over his shoulder. “What time?”

“Around five, probably, I can text you.”

Patrick smiles a little, but it somehow only serves to accentuate how fucking tired he looks. “Sounds good.”

Pete and Patrick don’t speak as they join the steady stream of people exiting the plane, don’t even really look at each other until they’ve both collected their luggage and are heading to different exits.

Pete knows what he does next is an asshole move, sure, but that’s never stopped him, and it’s not going to start doing so now. So he turns, cups Patrick’s face in one hand, and leans in to brush the faintest of kisses over Patrick’s lips. “Love you,” he says, because it’ll always be true, and Patrick needs to know that. Even though it terrifies Pete just as much as Patrick says it scares him, it’ll always be true. 

Patrick doesn’t reply before drifting away, turning and walking down a long hall towards the parking garage. Pete watches him disappear before turning away as well, thinking half-formed thoughts of cosmic magnets and wondering whether the night has left him worse or better off. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! feedback makes my day!


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